Pittsburghers know that the times are out of joint. Somehow they're expecting the prosperity to blow up in their faces.
Fortune Magazine, 1941

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Immigrant-Burgh

A report out from the Fiscal Policy Institute, a research group in New York, has Pittsburgh ranked number 1 in terms of the net benefit of international immigrants to the regional economy. See the table on the top right of page 11 of this: Immigrants in the Economy, Contribution of Immigrant Workers to the Country’s 25 Largest Metropolitan Areas.

3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to be negative, but the study also shows pgh has the smallest share of the labor force among the 25 metros. And, of course, if trends keep up pgh will be out of the top 25 in five years (replaced by Orlando).

The relative lack of foreign immigrants in the Pittsburgh area is compensated for by the quality thereof. Pittsburgh is the only major U.S. metro in which over half its foreign immigrants have a college degree.

Another thought of mine: If the locals aren't qualified to fill some of the jobs available (or don't even apply because they don't believe they exist), and getting people to move to Pittsburgh from other regions of the country is such a hard sell, then maybe websites like imaginemynewjob.com should start advertising local jobs to people in other countries. It'd kill three birds with one stone:

1. The jobs would get filled by people who are both able and willing to work them.